ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN: PROTOCELL ARCHITECTURE

Guest Edited by Neil Spiller and Rachel Armstrong

"Soil and Protoplasm: The Hylozoic Ground Project" by Rachel Armstrong and Philip Beesley

"The work is conceived as a new primitive hut that speaks of cultural origins within wilderness. The Hylozoic building system forms embroidered surfaces of a hybrid public architecture, a sprawling, tangled series of small public spaces. If attention turns from social gathering within these spaces towards the enclosing 'soil matrix' fabric, close inspection will reveal physical and chemical elements in various stages of transformation. The Hylozoic environment is a model system of a synthetic ecology undergoing an evolutionary process. Visitors can observe the initial state of the environment's ingredients, influence dynamic processes that respond to external presence, and review these ongoing modifications over time..."

The issue also includes Armstrong's 'How Protocells Can Make Stuff Much More Interesting'.